Five Women Who Never Wanted Teyla Emmagan
by tielan
Summary: The line between attraction and action is fine. At least five women in Atlantis walk it very closely. femmeslash


**Five Women Who Never Wanted Teyla Emmagen**

- **Disloyalty** -

The Genii always act for the Genii.

It is the first lesson any child of Gennia learns - as soon as they are old enough to comprehend the world around them. Above and beyond all else, the Genii are loyal to the Genii.

Still, Sora admires the older girl's poise as they skip along the track down to the river, released from the meetings of their fathers for the time being. Some girls from other planets shriek and squeal at the falls. Teyla looks out at the rock, peers down at the water, and mischief glints in her smile as she turns to Sora with her hand oustretched in invitation.

Sora hesitates only a moment. Her pride - the Genii pride - will not allow her to back down when the other girl has laid out the challenge. The brown-skinned hand holds tight and warm to hers as they run to the edge, laughing in their jackets and trousers and shoes as they leap off the edge.

Later, under a scolding from two fathers exasperated with their reckless daughters, Teyla brushes a damp strand of hair back from her face and Sora sees the twitch of a full mouth and frowns at the laughter in the face of their disobedience.

She wishes she could laugh, too.

It confuses her later, when the Athosians are gone. She should not feel this complicity - the Genii loyalty belongs alone to the Genii - but for all Teyla's poise, something in the Athosian girl laughs.

Something in Sora wants to laugh with her.

Over the years, both girls grow older, mature and politic in their own ways.

Sora feels rent between the clear superiority of the Genii, and Teyla's inability to acknowledge it - between what she should feel for her people and what she dreams of after Teyla and her people leave. She dreams of watching Teyla's expression grow wondering as she sees the marvels of the Genii, of tracing fingers along that full mouth as they stand face to face, of feeling strong hands on her skin, grasping her limbs, probing her flesh.

Until the last time Teyla comes, with a people who have usurped the Ancestors, who bear weapons in their travels, in whose clothing Teyla has clad herself, and to whose defence she leaps when it is discovered that they have awoken the Wraith.

Sora is polite, as she was trained to be, hiding the secrets of the Genii, and yet betrayal burns within her.

That she has betrayed Teyla's trust is a minor matter: the Genii act for the Genii. But Teyla betrayed her by taking up with these newcomers. The death of her father only compounds insult to injury, and she swears vengeance.

In the end, the Genii act for the Genii.

--

- **Respite** -

There's no respite in a city where the possibilities and the bureaucracy are endless.

Elizabeth feels like a goddamn princess in a tower - a glass tower - looking out on a world that she can see but can't share with anyone. Sheppard has chosen to take a step back from sharing the leadership responsibilities, leaving the city in her care so he can run around and play - except for those instances when he damns the torpedoes and steams full ahead. Rodney's not a stable enough personality for all his intelligence - and intelligence isn't the same as leadership, whatever he might think.

In the end, it's lonely at the top.

Loneliness isn't exactly a new experience for Elizabeth Weir. She's used to long assignments, far from home with only Simon's voice on the phone to anchor her.

But Simon's not in phoning distance anymore.

Sheppard and Rodney are too much like boys. Work is play to them - the balcony-tossing incident is just one example of many Elizabeth can cite. Elizabeth finds herself playing 'mom' often enough to those two; she wants someone she can lean on, not someone she has to reprimand all the time and yank back from whatever new insanity in which he's decided to participate.

She paces through the city, restless and weary, looking in here and there at the rooms she passes, until her eye catches motion and she pauses.

Teyla moves through what appears to be a stretching exercise with the sure, steady grace of someone accustomed of her body and its capabilities. Her face is in profile to Elizabeth, brow, nose, mouth, chin, her eyes unseeing as she concentrates on the flow of her gestures.

It's only when she turns to the door, that Elizabeth realises she's staring - and been caught at it.

"Dr. Weir."

"Teyla." The other woman doesn't seem annoyed at being interrupted, but seemings can be deceiving. Elizabeth indicates the corridor. "I didn't mean to interrupt, I was just passing through." Then, because she's curious, she asks, "Are these the exercises you're teaching Major Sheppard?"

She's heard about these 'teaching sessions' - reported to her by Sergeant Bates, who's less trusting of Teyla than the Major.

"No," Teyla says, her eyes laughing, although only a glint of teeth shows between the dusky lips. "This would not be to his taste at all."

"Would it be mine?" The question is asked before Elizabeth realises it needs asking.

Teyla measures her, thoughtfully. "Perhaps. It tends to the body, calms the spirit." Unsaid but understood is that Elizabeth could do with something to put her in balance, and a rush of warm gratitude courses through her as she steps forward.

"Show me."

The Athosian woman doesn't complain of the interruption as Rodney would; doesn't say that it's not really her place to teach as Sheppard would; she just takes Elizabeth through the moves of the stretch with enviable grace.

And as Teyla places her hands on Elizabeth's body to position limbs and adjust poses, the warmth washing through Elizabeth suddenly goes further than mere gratitude.

--

**- Attraction - **

Laura likes men.

She likes the way they admire, they way they feel, the way they kiss. She likes the build on them, the heat of the male body, energy and exothermy. She likes the way they move and the way they fuck.

And when she doesn't, she usually enjoys screwing with their minds.

A woman in the marines has to look out for herself. If she's checking out the ass around her at the same time, it's no biggie. Guys look with their eyes - it's when they think that looking means they can have, too, that things get nasty - Laura figures she can look as long as looking doesn't mean she's inviting. She looks out for herself.

Teyla doesn't look out for herself.

The Athosian woman walks and talks without fear amidst the new military that have come to the city in the wake of the siege. Some of the female scientists are oblivious. Others are plainly made nervous by the sudden influx of military men. Dr. Weir is too busy scrambling to get a hold on everything now that they're back in contact with Earth to really notice the extra military except when Colonel Sheppard brings a personnel matter to her notice.

Teyla Emmagan notices them but isn't disturbed by their presence.

She treats them with the same unconcern with which she speaks to the sergeant in the control room, regards them with the easy manner she gives to Dr. Beckett in the infirmary, and is as comfortable surrounded by them as she is when surrounded by McKay, Zelenka, and the other scientists.

Laura Cadman notices this and is intrigued.

To that end - and because Teyla's the hand-to-hand expert on the base, even if Ronon Dex looks more impressive in action - Laura starts lessons with Teyla. She's not into the stick-fighting, give her a P-90 anyday, but she can do hand-to-hand for a physical workout.

Once Teyla sees what Laura can do, she sets a gruelling pace. Their tied-back hair begins to slip from their elastic grips as they circle and jab, but from the easy movements, Laura knows she's being toyed with, that these are baby steps.

Still, she maintains the pace Teyla sets. Even if Laura can't beat the Athosian woman, pride's a goad that keeps her going as long as possible - until Teyla sweeps her feet out from under her and presses a hand lightly to Laura's throat.

"I believe that you are dead."

Laura appreciates the smile and the curves she can see, then huffs out a breath as Teyla moves away. Her muscles ache a little as she rolls to her feet, twinges in her sides and a little in her shoulders.

"Where'd you learn to fight like that? I mean, your people aren't exactly the fighting kind." Laura pauses. "Okay, that sounded really bad and I didn't mean it to."

"My people have not been able to fight back," says Teyla after her brows have lifted and fallen again. "That does not mean they are not able to defend themselves if they must."

There's a reproof in the words, but none of the snideness that Laura's used to getting from her (mostly male) superiors. It makes a pleasant change.

"Sorry."

And when Teyla's mouth tips up in a flashing grin of acknowledgement, Laura suddenly realises that perhaps she could like women as well.

--

**- Appropriate -**

Returning to Atlantis isn't all that people have wanted it to be. Kate's couch is busy with sessions as the expedition settles back in.

She lets her patients talk out their troubles as best she can, advises them where they'll take it, and types up her reports for Elizabeth and the IOA at the end of each session. It's not a glamourous life, but it's doing a job that needs doing, and she takes satisfaction in it..

"I believe the saying is 'all work and no play makes Kate a woman in need of her own medicine,'" says Teyla from the door.

Kate looks up, a little startled. "Sorry, Teyla, I forgot about lunch." Her stomach takes this moment to reminder her with bubbling hunger. She sees the broad grin on the other woman's face as she closes the file she'd been reading. "It's difficult not to get caught up in the cases."

"Your workload has been heavier since the return to the city," Teyla notes as they walk through the corridors on their way to lunch. "You are often very busy."

"Many of the people who came on the initial expedition, as well as those who came after, had high hopes for their life in Atlantis. Returning to Earth took a lot of that away. Then, too, while they were away from their families and loved ones...situations developed."

"People move on in their lives, but the perception of them remains the same?"

"Yes." Kate sighs. The return to Atlantis, although welcomed by all who'd returned, had caused unexpected stress in many people who'd tried to return to their 'old lives' on Earth only to realise just how much they'd changed. "People are adaptable, though - some more than others."

As they pass into the mess hall, it occurs to Kate that Teyla would have had some adjusting to do, coming back from her own people.

But she'd never know it from the other woman's calm acceptance of the city.

"How are your people?"

"They are...well." The pause says a lot. As does the next statement. "They are used to life without me. There are mixed responses to your return."

'Mixed responses' probably translates into a lot of recrimination and resentment, but Kate doesn't ask. Her responsibility is the Atlantis expedition, not all of Pegasus. As it is, Teyla's one of the best-adjusted people in the city - considering everything that's happened to her, her lack of the kind of training and conditioning in the way of the Earth marines, and her lack of obvious psychoses like the ones Rodney McKay wears on his sleeves.

"Did you settle back into your old life?"

They settle on the balcony outside the mess hall with their trays, with the midday light glittering off the ocean's waves, far out to sea.

Teyla's watching the waves when she answers. "A little. As much as is possible after so long an absence. It was not difficult to fit myself back into the routines of life; more difficult to enter the life of my people again." She sighs. "I do not know if they understand why I left them again. Only that this is something that must be done, and that I must do it."

Most calm is surface calm; Kate knows that. Her own insecurities and personal issues are subsumed in the job she has to do, in the role she must play as confidant to so many in the city. Friendships can be difficult when the professional requirement is for confidance and the personal requirement is for limits and space. A lot of people shy back from getting to know their therapist as a person. And those that don't are usually the more terrifying.

Kate's been taught what to look for, but in spite of their therapy sessions together, Teyla has never shied back from her personally, although during their conversations, there are things Teyla is reluctant to tell Kate - as much due to cultural differences as anything else.

Teyla's never inappropriately depended on Kate. Which is good from a therapist's point of view.

But as Teyla catches her speculative look and smiles broadly as she turns the topic elsewhere, Kate wishes she would.

--

**- Storm - **

Teyla arrives in Sam's office in full sail, her pregnant belly billowing out before her, Lorne floundering in her wake.

"I am able to assist with the Priyadhian evacuation." It's said in a smooth, calm voice, but for Teyla, the tone's distinctly belligerent.

Major Lorne has the look of a watchdog that's trying not to fail in doing his duty. "Colonel, we've got everything under control."

"Everything except the Priyadhians," Teyla says, matter-of-factly to him before she turns to Sam. "They are wary of your people. The lack of formality makes trust difficult."

Sam looks at Lorne and jerks her head, indicating that he doesn't need to be here, and notes that Teyla turns to watch the man go with something like relief. "I'm guessing Colonel Sheppard set him onto you?"

"John is worse than a mother hen," says the Athosian woman, taking a seat with a sigh. Her fingertips rest lightly on the edges of her swollen belly, but she is not concerned, her posture gently relaxed. "But neither he, nor Major Lorne are not why I am here. I have spoken with Dr. Keller - while some of the Priyadhians understand the urgency of their lives, there are others who are less open. The older people, in particular, are finding it hard to simply It would help the Priyadhians if some forms were followed."

"Teyla, their world is breaking up beneath their feet - we don't have time for the pleasantries!" Sam doesn't understand a culture that would value the polite forms more than their own life.

Clearly, Teyla does. "There is a saying among the Priyahdi. '_Great blocks of stone are formed of many grains of sand_.' It means the small things should be observed and not just the great."

"If they don't get off their planet in the next twenty-four hours, then it's doubtful that there will _be_ small practises to observe!" Still, Sam's listened to the exasperated report of every team leader who was assigned to the Priyadhian exodus, and nothing has budged the Priyadhi from their insistence that the forms be observed.

"Colonel," Teyla looks up with steady eyes, an anchor of understanding in a galaxy of people that Sam doesn't know. "If you will let me assist the teams managing the Priyadhian evacuation, then I promise you that the planet will be evacuated in twenty-four hours."

It goes against the grain to allow Teyla to go to an unstable planet. Every nerve, every muscle, every instinct screams against it. Maybe Sam's not John or Evan, to feel gallantry at Teyla's condition, but she also comes from a culture that traditionally tries to keep women out of danger - and which accords special consideration to the pregnant.

And Teyla knows this. She has to know it, with Sheppard hovering, and Evan following her around, and Rodney - Rodney! - being caught reading a book on babies that 'he just found lying on the table'.

Jack would never countenance it. General Landry would put his foot down. Probably even Elizabeth would draw the line at risking Teyla. But unlike any of them, Sam also knows what it's like to be seen for only her body and her appearance, to have what she can bring with her mind and intellect, her intelligence and her personality ignored, dismissed, and derided.

"All right," she says at last. "But I'm coming with you."

The relief in the warm smile bestowed on her makes her heart skip a beat as Teyla holds up her hands, silently requesting assistance to stand where another woman would have struggled to manage on her own.

For a moment, warm hands rest in Sam's cool ones, and dark eyes gaze into her face. "Thank you, Colonel Carter."

The moment is electric, crackling with something Sam doesn't dare name - not here and not now.

When she drops her hands to her sides, her palms are damp. "Teyla? Please call me 'Sam'."

"Very well, Sam. I shall see you in ten minutes down at the Gate?"

"Ten minutes." Her mouth is dry but she manages a smile.

And she watches Teyla move through the control room, serene as a day in calm seas, when Sam feels like she's just weathered a storm.

--

**- fin -**


End file.
